


to strike a spark

by pipistrelle



Series: heart like the fourteenth of july [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, sorry I'm not sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 07:27:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/732993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipistrelle/pseuds/pipistrelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Combeferre knows how to let things be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to strike a spark

Combeferre knows how to let things be.

It isn't a talent that's in much demand in the Musain and the Corinthe, in the world of his friends and their revolutions where everything is chaos and change, but it's one of the things Eponine likes most about him. While she loves every one of her friends fiercely, they can be suffocating sometimes, and there are days when she can't stand Grantaire's gloomy fatalism or Cosette's desire to Do Good for one more second. On those days, when her nerves are on fire with anger at the whole world and she feels like a walking grenade, just waiting for an excuse to explode and throw shrapnel in all directions, she goes and finds Combeferre.

It's a ritual that began long before they started dating, during the week Jehan calls the Great Fight of '11. Combeferre is long past surprise at her sudden appearances, and when he opens the door to find her standing ankle-deep in snow on his porch, her hair soaked and tangled, her eyes furious, he just nods and moves aside to let her in. It's the middle of a Thursday afternoon, and she knows that he knows that she should be in class, but he doesn't ask any questions. Instead he goes to the kitchen to get some tea, giving her time to compose herself.

She storms into his room and immediately lays claim to his bed, seizing a book at random from the uneven stacks scattered everywhere so that she'll have something to look at instead of his face. By the time he comes back from the kitchen with two steaming mugs, she's flicked angrily through a century and a half of Italian history without reading a word of it, and managed to fight back the urge to burst into tears.

"That one's not bad. Canterelli's translations are a little questionable, but he's got a democratic flair that makes the legislative parts more interesting," Combeferre says, as though it's perfectly normal for his friends to tear into his room and attack his books, as though he takes it for granted that she's been harboring, deep down, a fervent interest in Italian history all this time. (He assumes everyone is interested in everything, because he finds everything interesting.)

Eponine gives him a blank look. He shrugs a little and sets one of the mugs down on top of a bookshelf, in easy reach. He tilts his head to the side, considering whether to try and slip into bed next to her, but he abandons the idea at once as he takes in the tightness in the line of her jaw, the way her shoulders are hunched forward protectively, the shadows under her eyes, every inch of her a great big neon sign screaming _danger_! So instead he retreats to the desk chair across the room, reaching for a stack of papers there and seeming to lose himself entirely in their contents.

Eponine settles back against the wall, feeling all at once like she can breathe again. The rage that's been tightening aroud her chest like iron bands since this morning suddenly loosens, and the fire under her heart dims a little. Stupidly, she feels safe here, in this cramped little room full of books; looking over at the back of Combeferre's head, at the mass of dark curls bent over some pamphlet or other, she feels secure.

They've only been dating for a few weeks, and the feeling is still strange, so strange that she can't quite bring herself to trust it. Nothing in her life has ever been secure; not her home, her family, her next meal, or herself. Yet here is Combeferre, scrawny and lanky and cheerful and immoveable as mountains. It isn't that he protects her; she probably weighs more than he does, and for all he'll talk revolution with Enjolras she knows she's a far more capable fighter than he'll ever be. But he grounds her, anchors her, in a way she isn't sure she'll ever understand.

She reaches for the mug of tea he'd left for her; she doesn't actually like tea, but Combeferre makes tea automatically, as a nervous reflex, and she's learned that there's no point in fighting it, so she inhales the steam and cups her hands around the mug to soak up the last bit of warmth. Now that the rage that had been warming her has burned out, she's suddenly cold, a familiar chill with an edge of nausea that won't be helped by blankets.

Combeferre closes the last page of his pamphlet and turns to look at her, as though reassuring himself that she's still there. He doesn't ask if she's okay, and suddenly in that moment Eponine loves him fiercely for it. Instead he asks, gently as always, "Is it just the snow?"

He knows -- everyone knows -- that snow makes her vulnerable and abrasive, the way other people get anxious during thunderstorms. He doesn't know why; she's never told him about her teenage years, living rough with her parents and younger sister, sleeping under bridges in the winter and going barefoot as often as not. She hasn't told him about the inevitability of feeling the air turn cold and knowing that you were that much more likely to die, the despair so total it was almost freeing. She hasn't told him about the winters in the Gorbeau tenement, with the squalor and smoke and Azelma always sick with something, the nights spent awake listening to her cough while their parents snored across the room; Eponine had seemed to be made of tougher stuff, but there were times when, weakened with hunger, she got sick, too, and then it was days of lying in a corner, terrified of dying while her father cursed at her and accused her of wanting them all to starve. She hasn't told Combeferre about the nights she'd abandon the flat or her assigned lookout post to go off with Montparnasse, because he was a bully and a vain dipshit but he smiled at her sometimes and when she was pressed against him in a grungy little apartment somewhere at least she was warm...

Combeferre is still looking at her, his big dark eyes full of concern, and Eponine pulls herself back to the present, though in the pit of her stomach the chill weight of memory remains. "Yeah," she manages. "It's just the snow. And Marius and Cosette were being irritating, and it's just..." She looks away. "I'm fine."

"Oh." Combeferre doesn't push her, he never pushes her. It's not because he thinks she's fragile -- Eponine can smell that particular brand of condescension from a mile away, and doesn't take it well. It's more that he's always willing to take her word for things, to believe her, to take her seriously. He takes everyone seriously; he has a serious mind, and if she says she's okay, he takes it for granted that she has considered the matter from all angles and presented to him the results of her research, because that's how he answers questions. Eponine finds it hilarious and kind of endearing, that serious-mindedness of his.

He gets up and pads over to stand in front of the bed. "Do you mind?" he asks, indicating one of the stacks of books she's leaning on. She moves back a little, enough to allow him to reach for the books, though not so far that he can avoid brushing his arm against her knee as he picks through them. He finally pulls out a black folder and opens it up to study a sheet delineated with neat color-coded blocks; his class schedule. Eponine reads over his shoulder, more out of habit than curiousity, but the schedule catches her eye. "Wait a minute, don't you have lecture on Thursdays at one?"

He shrugs and smiles a little. "It's just Science of Philosophy. I've already finished the reading for the entire semester, it won't kill me to miss a lecture."

"How would you know? You've never missed a lecture before." She regards him curiously. "Are you sick or something?"

He glances out the window and shrugs. "I took a snow day," he says, and she understands at once that he's been waiting for her -- for her, the unstable crazy girl, the walking grenade, who's gone nearly her whole life without anyone ever really giving a shit about her -- that he's been waiting for her here ever since the snow started, because he knew she might need him and he was going to be there if she did.

She makes no effort at all to resist the impulse to hook one hand into his collar and pull him down into a kiss. His lips are soft and yielding, and as his hands land on her hips a wave of warmth floods through her, driving out the cold real and remembered, filling her up until her skin is too tight and she feels like she might burst. The folder has dropped from Combeferre's hand and she's kicked a stack of books off the bed with a crash, but neither of them notices. He pulls back slightly to trail kisses in a line over her jaw, down her neck to her shoulder, each one burning like a brand, and she moans into his neck.

His head comes up, his glasses all askew. He leans and rests his forehead against hers, and the corner of his wire frames are jabbing her cheek so she pulls them off and drops them over the side of the bed, not worrying that they might get stepped on. Without them he looks naked, even more so than with all his clothes off. It's fascinating to Eponine, and she takes a moment to savor it, to savor him, full of warmth even though his fingers are cold, here in front of her full of passion and so certain to still be there when the sex is over.

His lips, so soft and pretty and one of Eponine's favorite things about him, are red and swollen, and Eponine can feel through his jeans exactly how excited he is, but he's holding back. "Tell me what you need," he says, breathless and a little solemn.

"You," she growls, suddenly full of fire again, and she pushes him back onto the bed, scattering another stack of books.

The snow is still falling outside, but as Combeferre's lips find her skin and his body presses against hers, it doesn't feel like winter at all.


End file.
